If the dh likes heartier meals try a vegetarian chili. It's thick, it's delicious. It's topped with cheese and sour cream! Serve with corn bread or chips and salsa (or my favorite, over spaghetti) and that's a meal! When I was in college my roomies and I used to make bean and corn tacos that were delish. We took two cans each of corn and black beans. One red onion chopped, paprika and cumin to taste. Cook until all the liquid is gone and everythings nice and soft. Spoon into corn tortillas and serve with taco fixins. Yummy and cheap...eh...i mean...economical ;)

Here is one of my fav dishes Portabello mushroom stuffed with cooked barley add to spinache mixed with cream cheese and sour cream and seasoned with curry powder
then wrapped in puff pastry and baked till pipping hot and served with a butternut squash puree seasoned with a hint of nutmeg and S+P great Sunday dinner. I fix this for my veggie friends with good reviews

Pasta is always easy, and not only marinara. I'm making mushroom stroganoff tonight, and pasta e fagioli, herbs in olive oil, puttanesca (sans anchovies), etc. are easy, healthy options as well. Ethnic cuisines such as Indian and Thai are also often meatless, especially Indian.

I made this last week. It's a one pot rice dish with cabbage and chickpeas and certainly didn't taste vegetarian =)

Soup is another good choice. Here are some links:

Wicked Good Vegetarian Chili - Don't expect standard chili flavor, but I really like this. TVP is a meatless ground alternative. I use the same amount of bulgar instead as I don't much like TVP.

The fish and meat thing has been around a LONG time. Fasting fridays for Catholics meant fish dinner.

I think nowadays it has more to do with the resources needed to support "growing" the meat and fish require virtually nothing.

Keep in mind folks I'm not giving THE answer here, just my own thoughts!

Barring the original reason for not eating meat on Fridays, Catholics later changed the reasoning to mean a penance by sacrificing the meat on one day of the week. However, since no one wanted to cook fish in their own kitchens, the Friday Night Fish Fry was born and they packed them in with this one. Friends and relatives loved the social as well as the convenience of not having to cook that day.Later most people looked forward to going out to restuarants on Friday nights so they could get their fill of lobster and crab legs. So much for penance.. In 1963 the Church decided to drop this outdated and no longer necessary practice. But every restaurant on the planet still serves clam chowder on Friday as their "soup du jour." And to this day, I still look forward to eating fish/seafood a couple times a week.

Pasta is always easy, and not only marinara. I'm making mushroom stroganoff tonight, and pasta e fagioli, herbs in olive oil, puttanesca (sans anchovies), etc. are easy, healthy options as well. Ethnic cuisines such as Indian and Thai are also often meatless, especially Indian.

I made this last week. It's a one pot rice dish with cabbage and chickpeas and certainly didn't taste vegetarian =)

Soup is another good choice. Here are some links:

Wicked Good Vegetarian Chili - Don't expect standard chili flavor, but I really like this. TVP is a meatless ground alternative. I use the same amount of bulgar instead as I don't much like TVP.

Also.... I noticed some folks mentioned fish as alternatives... why is fish not considered meat? That is one that has always baffled me!

Meat is the flesh of animals. Poultry is the flesh of fowl. Since fish are sea creatures who don't bear their young live, they are not considered animals, unlike shark, whales, etc. Soooo therefore their flesh is not considered meat.

Okay now the question, if shark is considered an animal, why is their flesh not considered meat? I only know so much, not enough, just so much.

Swordtail fish bear their young alive.....so they are animals. I'm just messin with ya. As far as I am concerned, meat is meat if it comes from any living animal fish or bird. I plan on abstaining from it all.

An animal is an animal - from insect through fish through birds through mammals. Period. It has absolutely nothing to do with the color of their "flesh" or whether or not they lay eggs or bear their young live.

There are many different variations of "vegetarianism" ranging from those like vegans who eschew virtually anything & everything animal based (including eggs, milk, cheese, etc.) to those who simply do not eat red meat (i.e. from mammals) products, with many variations inbetween. One variation isn't anymore "authentic" than the other.

(Oh - & while whales are mammals, sharks are not. Sharks are fish. And many, many, MANY fish bear live young - not that that has anything at all to do with whether or not they should be considered "animals".)